A Bag of Mice
by DrWorm
Summary: The first thing Herbert West planned to do upon his escape from Arkham State Penitentiary was seek revenge on Daniel Cain. The problem is, he never stopped to consider what would come after.
1. Prologue

"There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography." - Thomas Szasz

—**Arkham State Penitentiary, Arkham, Massachusetts. March, 1990.**—

Vincent Cavanaugh reflected, as he stood outside the half-open door of his office and flipped through the thick manila folder he held, that he really didn't deserve to have Herbert West as a patient. Although 'patient' was perhaps too strong a term; Cavanaugh was well aware that, as a psychiatrist working part-time at a prison, he was likely to be ranked below a priest on any list of expendable formalities. Nevertheless, he was still young enough to be cheerful and idealistic about the work he was able to do for the prisoners and their myriad disorders, and had even become quite accustomed to the kinds of men who cycled in and out of the environment of incarceration: those who came and went erratically and those who were trapped forever in the malformed tide pool of the penitentiary. Moreover, he felt encouraged by the way that the prisoners had been, while not overly responsive to him, not overly hostile either, which was more than he knew a great many of those who worked with prisoners received for their trouble.

West, however, was entirely dichotomous to the large, loud, poorly educated, and often repeatedly violent men he generally served who often lapsed into uncharacteristic bouts of shyness when seated face-to-face with a psychiatrist or counselor. But West was small, almost delicate, in size and stature, and fastidious in his dress and mannerisms; his movements were all very deliberate and calculating, while every expression to cross his face seemed underscored by something contemptuous that was not quite scorn but not quite pity either. For Cavanaugh, it was a disconcerting—almost thrilling—change of pace.

And yet, while West's case promised to be an interesting challenge and a desirable break in the daily tendency toward monotony, Cavanaugh found the man entirely unnerving, even slightly repulsive, in his haughtiness of presentation; simply put, he was terribly intimidated by the young doctor. Moreover, Cavanaugh was more than conscious of West's intelligence relative to his own—while he would never make an outright comparison between West and the fictional Dr. Hannibal Lecter, he imagined that their conversations would share some of the same dreadful overtones of the exchanges between Clarice Starling and the psychotic psychiatrist in that movie everyone seemed to be fawning over lately. It was a scenario he was most emphatically not looking forward to being a part of.

Therefore, in preparation for their first court-appointed meeting, Cavanaugh had done as extensive an amount of research as time and resources would allow, obtaining reports from the court psychiatrist who had declared West competent to stand trial, newspaper articles concerning the infamous Miskatonic Massacre and Arkham Tragedy, even managing to get detailed records of West's employment and education, including information from Zurich about the time he had spent in study with Dr. Hans Gruber. He'd found the earlier records to be strangely spotty in many places, as if someone had set out to destroy the less savory aspects of Herbert West's past. The psychological profile and accompanying records made and collected by the court-employed psychiatrist were even more irritating to wade through: completely uncomplimentary, repugnant in a way that was almost worthy of a tabloid, and poorly organized to boot. But what Cavanaugh found most intriguing was the shadowy presence of West's so-called scientific "partner," to whom he found numerous references in the periphery of his patient's colorful background. So, out of idle curiosity more than anything else, Cavanaugh had put in a request for any information about Daniel Cain as well, in an attempt to understand the life West had led before his incarceration.

The folders that had come back to him from his two separate requests for information had formed the basis for several nights of fascinatingly morbid reading and creative deduction. From what Cavanaugh could glean from the melding of the two sporadic histories, Cain had been a handsome, successful medical student with a serious girlfriend and a 3.8 grade point average when West had entered his life in the beginning of his third year at Miskatonic; a month later, Cain's girlfriend and her father, the dean of the medical college, were dead and both Cain and West were indicated as suspects in the incident. West had been seriously injured during the so-called "massacre" and was unable to return to classes for nearly six months following the entire messy debacle. The charges against them were eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Then, for reasons Cavanaugh could not begin to imagine, West and Cain had continued to live with one another throughout the remainder of their time spent in medical school and their residencies. They had traveled to Peru together to assist as physicians during some of the less consequential skirmishes in the area during the local civil war, and had returned to Arkham after Cain had sustained an injury during a midnight ambush. They had then rented a house together and allegedly performed a kind of clandestine medical research as partners. Cavanaugh made a note to himself to ask West about what, exactly, their research had entailed. He knew from the reports that had been made during the highly publicized trial that it had a focus that was at least tangential to medicine and that human cadavers had been somehow involved, but assuming anything more was putting too much faith in a sensationalist media.

In the end, of course, West was arrested in conjunction with the events that had resulted in the death of a police lieutenant and several apparently innocent bystanders as well as the cave-in within the Arkham cemetery. Cain surrendered evidence and testimony against West in exchange for a grant of immunity from the district attorney's office, and West had been summarily convicted. But still, throughout the meandering account Cavanaugh was able to create for himself of their time spent together, the odd undercurrent of their unnatural and unspecific scientific treatises wove their meager personal lives into some sort of wayward marriage of a dominant and a submissive personality.

Cavanaugh felt a bit ashamed as he skimmed through West's case file there in the hallway and paused over the statement made by the court psychiatrist. He found it difficult to reconcile the facts he had about West's life with the recent report that had been issued by Matthew Pierce, who was employed by the district attorney and a man Cavanaugh had never been able to respect on a professional level.

Pierce had a tendency to fill his reports with downright insulting comments about the accused men and women he interviewed, all of whom he generally spoke to for less than two hours before releasing his definitive statement. His take on Herbert West had been, unsurprisingly, to note that there was no basis for a plea of insanity and to recommend a diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder. In what seemed to Cavanaugh to be an entirely irrelevant observation, Pierce had also made the assertion that a repressive sexual disorder was likely. _Probably thinks he's some sort of a deviant or a homosexual_, Cavanaugh noted cynically; he knew that Pierce enjoyed tying all violent behavior back to some sort of psychosexual trauma or distraction. Cavanaugh himself tended to find the entire philosophy somewhat lurid and exasperating. But though he had initially rolled his eyes at Pierce's assessment, he'd found himself beginning to take it into serious consideration as more information about West and his partner in research and—apparently—high crime became available to him.

So it was that he stood outside of his office just before his first formal meeting with West, as well-educated on the subject of his patient's background as he could hope to be. But he still felt inadequate when it came to his ability to assess the man's psychological state. The glum sight of the guard stationed by the large set of steel doors at the end of the corridor was just another reminder that he wasn't going to have a session with the average depressed housewife or angst-filled teenager.

* * *

"Dr. West," Cavanaugh attempted a friendly smile and held out his hand as he entered the office and turned to face the plastic chair which was bolted to the floor, where West sat. "Good to see you today. I'm Dr. Vincent Cavanaugh."

West stared up at him placidly, but did not extend his hand in return.

Cavanaugh cleared his throat and slipped his outstretched hand into his trouser-pocket as he sidled around the desk to his chair, dropped the folder onto his blotter, flipped it open, and sat down heavily. "Well, Dr. West… I've given this some thought, and I think our first order of business should be to dispense with any presumption of bullshit, here."

West raised one curious eyebrow.

"You are here because, though the court psychiatrist ruled you competent for trial, it was recommended that you follow-up with me due to suspicions of a form of personality disorder and accompanying violent or destructive tendencies."

West interrupted with a small sniff of indignation. "A completely unfounded assumption."

"And that may very well be true," Cavanaugh replied soothingly. He plucked a pen from a crowded holder and toyed with it as he paged through the folder until he found a blank page on which to take notes. "Still, I'm afraid I can't let you off the hook based solely upon your opinion. You're a bit of an anomaly for me, you know. I'm sure you're aware of the kind of patients I normally treat."

"'Treat?'" West's face twisted into a contemptuous sneer. "And here I was under the impression that the actual treatment of mental health in this charnel pit mostly involves tossing mass-quantities of lithium down the throat of the problem until it is no longer able to howl in your ear."

Cavanaugh continued to smile blandly through the unflattering editorial statement. "Well, I myself try to avoid taking that particular approach. But I can't speak for the rest of my colleagues, as you are no doubt aware."

West didn't respond, but his gaze remained unrelenting. Cavanaugh turned back to the case file and made a show of flipping through the pages, trying to ignore the creeping sensation of horripilation at the back of his neck.

"But let's not get sidetracked." He paused, trying to recall which course of dialogue he had decided would be most effective in teasing the most information from his clearly reticent patient. His eyes lit upon the account of West's time spent abroad, and he looked up, suddenly decisive. "I see here that you spent nearly a year in Switzerland studying issues of biochemistry with the esteemed Dr. Hans Gruber." He paused momentarily, glancing up to judge West's reaction. "In fact, you were present at the time of his death, weren't you?"

"I did not kill him," West said abruptly, his words clipped and succinct. "I tried to save him."

"But the Swiss authorities didn't seem to believe you." Cavanaugh made an obvious gesture of checking a notation within the folder in from of him. "They put you under psychiatric observation for several months, didn't they?" West didn't answer. "I expect that was a very upsetting experience."

"They didn't understand my work." West shrugged and sniffed haughtily.

Cavanaugh made a small, sympathetic noise. "I see."

West lapsed back into silence. Cavanaugh decided to change his approach.

"When you refer to your work, do you mean your work as a physician?"

"Of course not," West corrected him. "The research I was engaged in with Dr. Gruber was based almost exclusively in chemical reactions within the body. We weren't treating any patients."

"But you went on to become a licensed physician, didn't you Dr. West?" Cavanaugh asked, fascinated despite himself. "You graduated from Miskatonic Medical School and even went on to work within the hospital. But why do this if the work you were doing in Switzerland was focused in the field of biochemistry?"

"Clearly you have no understanding of how someone who wishes to observe how the body's chemistry affects and is affected by illness or injury would go about doing it." West lapsed into the droning tone of voice of a pedantic, and Cavanaugh speculated, with some amusement, that it was probably an affectation that was both comfortable and reassuring for the deposed doctor. "However, I admit that money was one of my chief concerns."

"Oh?"

"Obviously the extensive research I had hoped to undertake would be extremely expensive. And once I was shuffled out from under the wing of Dr. Gruber… well." West began to tap his fingers idly against the armrest. "I knew that I would be unable to secure adequate funding on my own through grants and so forth. And I didn't want to," he added emphatically. "In one breath, they all would have denounced me, called me a madman, and then stolen my work for their own purposes."

"So you felt you had to enter a profession that would allow you to be, ah, self-sufficient?" Cavanaugh prompted.

"In part. It was also convenient, since I had completed two years of medical college before going to Zurich. And Miskatonic had more than adequate funding and equipment that I could put to my own use." He shrugged and shifted slightly in his seat. "It's perfectly obvious when you think about it."

"I see, I see. But I have to ask you, Dr. West," Cavanaugh leaned forward over his desk, lacing his fingers together around his pen and slowly swiveling the seat of his chair from side to side, "Mostly because of my own curiosity… what exactly did your work and research entail?"

West gave him a paranoid glance.

"Well, you must know that what was printed in the newspaper and tabloids was incredibly vague and, ah, bordering on hysteria?" When West made no move to agree, disagree, or correct him, Cavanaugh tried again. "And you must want to correct some of the over-simplified misconceptions that spread during your trial, right?"

Still, West stayed silent; after a moment he turned his head to look out the tiny, barred window.

"Okay," Cavanaugh soon conceded defeat and turned back to the case file, searching for a new subject. "Then why don't we move on… and you can tell me a little bit about your partner, Dr. Daniel Cain?"

West's head jerked sharply back to look at Dr. Cavanaugh. "You have done your homework," he said without enthusiasm. Cavanaugh's smile broadened slightly.

"Oh, now I would hardly call it homework, Dr. West." He leaned forward in his seat and crossed his legs beneath the desk. "You've led a rather fascinating life."

"Perhaps. But I can't begin to imagine why you would want to hear about Dan from me."

"I was under the impression that he was a large part of your life for several years," Cavanaugh said pointedly. West sneered in return, hip upper lip lifting to reveal one sharp, pointed eyetooth.

"He may have been, at one time." West twitched one hand in a quick gesture that was reminiscent of someone brushing away an irritating insect. "But now… I'll probably never see him again, hmm? And I have no particular desire to."

Cavanaugh observed West's furrowed brow and clearly controlled frustration with some interest, making a note in the margin beside one of the mentions of Daniel Cain. "Are you angry with him?"

West's face suddenly became smooth, devoid of any expression other than faint boredom. "He made the choice he felt he had to make."

"His testimony was the primary reason for your conviction. I would think that would be very difficult to take, considering that he got a grant of immunity and you may be spending the next fifteen to twenty years here."

Again, West looked away from him and gave no sign of answering the question. Cavanaugh felt a spike of irritation and was unsurprised; it was always frustrating when patients opted to ignore questions, since even the most roundabout or irrelevant responses could offer clues that aided in diagnosis or therapy. He tried another question, half-hoping that he would be able to surprise or incite West to give him an answer that was more emotionally revealing. "What was Daniel Cain to you?"

"What?"

"Was he your partner? Your friend? Hired help, a lab assistant… any of those sound like accurate descriptions?" West pursed his lips and nodded slowly; he looked as if he was responding to a question he had asked himself, and not the one Dr. Cavanaugh had directed at him. "Well? Any one of those things in particular? Or all of them?"

West hesitated, and then shook his head once, very quickly. "I thought he cared about what we were doing." His voice became quiet. "I overestimated him."

"How do you feel about him now?"

West shook his head again and stared at Cavanaugh's desktop; his hands rested on his knees, palm-down and hooked into claws that strained the fabric of the clothing issued to him by the prison. "He deserves whatever he gets."


	2. Chapter 1

"I will not leave you until I have seen you hanged." - Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

—**Braintree, Massachusetts. September 2003**—

The night-air was cool, but not cold, and the tall elm trees strategically placed in every well-tended green lawn moved sinuously in the light breeze of the early fall evening. Despite himself, Herbert West found that he was impressed by the clear night and the quiet of the affluent suburban neighborhood, lit by the deliberate splotches of streetlamps luminescing yellow and overseen by an uneven gibbous moon. Though he'd come with the intention of exacting a violent revenge he'd been nursing for nearly thirteen years, he couldn't help being slightly awed by the success of his former partner. But of course, every one of Daniel Cain's triumphs—his employment as a senior member of the thoracic surgical team at Massachusetts General, his comfortable and highly modern-styled home in an obviously expensive suburb of Boston, his year-old BMW which sat unassumingly in the driveway, sleek and mockingly silent—were also all fuel for Herbert's anger, which had already been honed by his long-stewing acidic feelings of resentment and jealousy.

Still, these emotions were mere footnotes to the feelings of betrayal that had kept him vindictive company during his years in prison. He had never suspected that Daniel could have been capable of such a direct initiative against him, against the work he'd always seen as being of the utmost importance to both of them, and had felt nauseated in the same way that another person might have at the knowledge of an adulterous lover. But Herbert had, for a long time, focused his anger on the perceived slight of his research and what he had come to regard as his shared life life's work. That Dan had been free to have a career and, surely, a sickeningly loving family while Herbert had suffered slow suffocation during his imprisonment was a secondary insult compared to the persecution of the greatest development in medical science.

Herbert lurked in the shadows that pooled at the foot of Dan's driveway, struck by a frustratingly unidentifiable sense of inherent wrongness in the setting; the house was far darker than he felt it should have been, and he could see only one room on the ground floor that was lit. After years of planning the specifics of a variety of retaliations, he was irritated to find that he wasn't entirely sure how execute the approach. He craned his neck to one side, trying to peer around the garage to the backyard in the weary hope that there might have been an errant lapse in security—say, an open window or a screen door left unlatched—that could have allowed him to enter the house without initially disturbing any of its occupants. But the carelessness of summer had clearly passed, and the house's many orifices appeared to be shut tightly against the anticipation of the cold.

Scowling, Herbert turned back to the front of the house and stared thoughtfully at the shallow bank of the front steps. He could wait, of course, now that he had found where Daniel was living and working; he could always accost him at some later date, outside of his home if necessary. Then again, that course of action ran the risk of catching the attention of local police, as did any degree of breaking and entering, and he had no intention of going back to prison for the merest sake of trying to get even with Dan Cain. He rolled his shoulders, wincing slightly at the uncomfortable pops in his aching joints, and shifted the large leather medical case he carried from one hand to the other as he thought idly about just walking up and knocking on the door. The past several days had been, while exhilarating for him as he realized the reality of his reclaimed freedoms, enormously stressful as well with the constant state of alertness need to remain a free man under an assumed identity. He needed to rest, to bring together the tatters of his thoughts and ideas into something more coherent and cohesive. Frustration and fatigue were beginning to cloud his judgment and he knew he was running out of money and options.

Under normal circumstances, he knew his pride would never allow for such a compromise of his convictions; but of course, the circumstances were far from normal. Perhaps, though, he thought, it was time to allow survival—maybe even subterfuge—to take precedence over pride. It wouldn't have been the first time. And, though he hated to admit it, Dan was the only link he had to the life he had lived before prison. He let out a deep sigh of exasperated resignation, tightened his grip on the handle of his bag, and set off toward the front steps, cutting across the lawn and nimbly side-stepping a concealed sprinkler. When he reached the door, he rapped sharply on it with his knuckles and then stood back to await an answer; he was barely aware of the tingling of anticipation in his fingertips or the shiver that ran down his spine as he heard footsteps followed by the crisp clicks of locks being turned.

The heavy oak door was tugged inward, and a tall, thin figure appeared, silhouetted by the light coming from the hallway.

"Oh… it's you."

—**Not far from Arkham State Penitentiary, four days earlier**—

He was very careful to keep to the back roads and alleys and to stay in the darkest pools of shadow whenever possible, hiding in the small, darkened shelters of closed storefronts or even behind a nearby dumpster whenever another person approached on the sidewalk. He moved like small mouse moves around a large, lazy cat that may or may not have gathered enough energy to pay attention to the smaller, weaker creature. But still, once he reached Arkham's dilapidated strip mall, he knew that he would have to either acquire some new clothes or risk being almost certainly being noticed. He slunk behind one of the stores, leaned against a huge metal dumpster that had the words "CARDBOARD ONLY" stenciled on one side and began to consider the situation he was in.

After more than thirteen years of prison, the knowledge that he was free, unwatched, and staring up at the night sky for the first time in years thrilled him in a way that he never would have been able to explain to another person. But, for the moment, he reveled in his solitude, and in the peaceful quiet around him. The sound of cars on the road had dulled to a low, continuous roar that was almost soothing. The stores that made up the strip mall were beginning to close for the night, and the occasional human voice that came out of the darkness seemed far away and inconsequential. He took a deep breath and set down the bag he had carried with him out of the penitentiary; his shirt, formerly clean and white and smartly starched, had become soaked with his sweat around the collar, down the back, and beneath the arms, and the front was tacky with the blood that had been splashed on him during the gruesome prison riot. He held the wet fabric of his shirt away from his skin with a small grimace of disgust.

It was not just the blood that would make going out into public problematic, he realized abruptly. While he had several changes of clothing in his bag, his face was still well-known and vilified in Arkham and the neighboring towns; if he ventured out into the town dressed as he always did, without making any attempt to obscure or alter his appearance in any way, he would run a far greater chance of being recognized and arrested again. And, he reflected bitterly, he had no intention of ever going back to prison, no matter what the circumstances.

* * *

Brandy Powell sighed, cracked her chewing gum, and turned the page of the book she was reading, a cheesy true crime novel called _The Strangest Crimes of New England_ that she'd found amid the stacks of junk in the thrift store. She didn't really like reading all that much, but there wasn't really anything else for her to do between customers once she had finished slogging through her homework. Bob Reed, the thrift store manager, had decided that they'd start staying open until ten at night to try to attract money-conscious customers away from Wal-Mart and the other discount stores that had popped up, putting more and more of the small businesses of Arkham out of business. Still, she thought that staying open later was just a lot of wasted effort; hardly anyone ever came in between eight o'clock and nine forty-five when she started to close things down.

She glanced at the clock before tackling the next page of gory description and sensationalized eyewitness reports. It wasn't even nine-thirty yet. She tapped her long fingernails on the Formica countertop, wishing yet again that there was someone who worked evenings besides Walter, the dorky guy who took inventory in the back.

Suddenly the bell over the door rang and Brandy looked up, startled. The man who'd come into the store was short and thin and walked with a weird sort of self-confidence that she found, frankly, creepy. Even worse, though, was the glassy look in his eyes coupled with the dark red stains on the front of his otherwise formal white shirt.

"Oh my god, is everything all right?" she asked shrilly. Her voice caused him to jump slightly, and she immediately cringed and began to apologize. "I'm really sorry… um, is there anything I can do for you?"

The man shook his head and smiled vaguely. "No, no." He waved his hand in a placating gesture, and Brandy saw that his hand was wrapped in a dingy bandage. "I just, ah, cut myself changing a tire." He glanced down at the bloodstains on his shirt and spread his hands apologetically. "And, unfortunately, the airport lost my luggage, so…"

"Oh!" Brandy pointed toward the back of the store with her free hand. "Sure, sure. Well, the men's clothes are just back there."

"Thank you." She watched as he strolled casually between the shelves of toys and the slightly haphazard piles of furniture, making his way back to the racks of clothing that lined the far wall. She was struck by an odd feeling of recognition, as if she should have known who he was, but still couldn't place his face. Was he a teacher, maybe, at the elementary school or middle school? No, he'd said that the airport lost his luggage, so he'd probably come in from out-of-state. Was he famous somehow? She stared after him unashamedly, watching as he pulled an old, shapeless flannel button-up off the rack. He sure didn't _look_ famous….

With a shrug, Brandy went back to her book. She was currently on the chapter about the local Miskatonic Massacre, and despite herself she was starting to feel a little freaked out. After all, the fact that it had happened in Arkham, not even a mile from her house, made reading about it even crazier. She was actually kind of glad that she wasn't old enough to remember the panic that had come over their little town; having to hear about it from her parents was more than enough for her, thanks so much. She paused, holding her place with one finger, and flipped through the pages until she found the next chapter. Just as she'd suspected, they'd followed up their account of the Miskatonic Massacre with a description of the Arkham Tragedy. Brady made a face. It was just too gross! And, all right, a little creepy too, but honestly… did anybody _actually_ believe all that crap about severed arms and legs moving around on their own? She sure didn't.

"Good book?" The man set down a bundle of clothing beside the cash register, and Brandy gave a little gasp of surprise.

"Oh, geez… I'm sorry, I almost forgot about you." The man gave her a placid smile that only made her feel more uneasy. She glanced down at the book she was holding as it finally registered that he had asked her a question. "It's, um, kinda trashy actually."

"It looks it."

"Yeah, I'm only reading it 'cause I'm bored and there's nothing else to do." She set it down, suddenly embarrassed. "So… are you all set then?"

"Yes, I think so."

Brandy punched the amounts on the different tags into the register. He was buying a sweater, the flannel shirt she'd seen him looking at, a white t-shirt, a pair of faded blue jeans stained with splotches of white paint, a Red Sox baseball cap, and a pair of sneakers. "Huh… I guess you really did lose all your clothes, then?" She joked lamely, feeling more than a little self-conscious under the man's impassive stare.

"Hmm."

"Okaaaaaay… well, your total comes to $15.86." He handed her a twenty dollar bill and, when she dropped his change into his outstretched hand, their fingers brushed and she felt a sudden shudder dance up and down her spine; his skin felt cold and clammy against hers, and the sensation involuntarily summoned images of limbs writhing of their own accord across the cold tile floor of the Miskatonic morgue. Hurriedly, she snatched her hand back and bagged his purchases, pushing the plastic bag across the small countertop rather than handing it to him.

"Thank you," he said, weaving the fingers of his good hand through the loops of the handles. "Enjoy your book."

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Brandy watched as the strange man picked up his purchases and left the store. "Man… so _weird_." She murmured as he disappeared around the corner. "I am never, ever taking the evening shift again."

* * *

Herbert West hurried around to the back of the strip mall where he'd left his bag and other belongings. Quickly, he unwrapped the strip of fabric he'd twisted around his hand and dropped it on the ground. He changed into the clothes he'd just bought as quickly as he could, frowning at the odd, uncomfortable feeling of the scratchy, unfamiliar feel of the different fabrics. As he knelt down to tie the laces of the sneakers, he reflected upon how amusing the stupidity of human beings could be.

The girl in the thrift store was a perfect example of how almost all people were utterly oblivious to their surroundings; there she had been, reading a book with his picture on the cover, and still he was sure that she hadn't had the slightest idea to connect the man standing in front of her to the ghoulish horror she was reading about. He let out a small chuckle as he tugged the baseball cap down so that the bill cast a low shadow over his eyes. It was all too _perfect_… so perfect, in fact, that it almost made him wonder why he'd bothered to get himself a disguise at all. Still, it was far better to be safe than to run the risk of having a policeman beat the odds and pick him out of a crowd.

He stood, brushed off his knees, and dug in the pockets of the pair of trousers he'd just taken off, retrieving the roll of bills he had taken from the unfortunate Dr. Phillips and stuffing it into the front pocket of his new blue jeans. Then, he rolled his trousers up along with his necktie and shoes and pushed them into his black bag; he balled up his soiled shirt and put it into the plastic bag from the thrift store along with his faux bandage. With a jaunty, tuneless whistle, he scooped up the black medical bag filled with his clothes and bottles of reagent and started off away from the strip mall, swinging the plastic bag from his wrist and into a dumpster as he passed.

There was so much he had to do.

—**Arkham courthouse, Arkham, Massachusetts. January, 1990**—

"I'm really sorry it happened like this, Herbert. But I just got tired of… you know." Dan raked his fingers through his hair and sighed. Herbert snorted, and drummed his fingers impatiently on the glass partition. They spoke through a metal grille that had been inserted at approximately mouth-level, making the small security cubicle seem like a perversion of the classic Catholic confessional.

"You always were a terrible assistant," he said, avoiding Dan's plaintive stare. He felt Dan should have been angrier, more frustrated, or even subtly gloating about his good fortune in receiving a grant of immunity in exchange for delivering Herbert West unto the district attorney. But Dan was simply sad, even excessively apologetic; it grated infuriatingly on Herbert's already taut nerves.

"I just want to have a normal life," Dan whispered in response.

"Oh, Daniel," Herbert sneered, "How typical of you. All you ever wanted from the world was mediocrity."

Dan shrugged. "Maybe. And maybe it's too bad that you…" He coughed nervously and hesitated a moment, distracted by the ferocity of Herbert's glare. "That you never bothered to understand that."

"_Understand?_" Herbert hissed incredulously, his brows knitting together with intense restrained anger. "What is there to understand? That you are willing to throw away everything we've worked for—"

"No, no, that isn't what I said." Dan shook his head. "That isn't even what this is about." Beneath his heavy eyebrows, Dan's eyes abruptly lost their apologetic creases. "Herbert, my god… were you ever planning on growing up?"

"What kind of idiotic question is that?"

"Yeah. I guess I should have expected that sort of a response from you." Dan looked down at his hands as Herbert brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his shirtfront. "I should have known that you honestly thought you could spend the rest of your existence playing with people's lives—"

"How _dare_ you say that when you know I—" Dan's voice rose and cut Herbert off before he could launch into a full-blown self-righteous tirade.

"Playing with people's lives—and deaths—and you just expected me to always go along with it, like I was just like you." Dan's lips were set in a tight, straight line. "But I'm not like you." Herbert snorted inelegantly in response. "I'm _not_. And I can't keep living this isolated life just because there's a miniscule possibility that we might someday find some way to make the reagent work."

Herbert clucked his tongue derisively. "What an emotional little speech, Daniel." He narrowed his eyes. "And I guess you feel you can't go to prison either, but it's perfectly all right if I do?"

Dan shrugged. "I'm sorry. I never expected it to end this way."

"Oh. Didn't you?"

—**Braintree, Massachusetts. September 2003**—

"So… they let you out already?" Dan slouched against the doorjamb, regarding Herbert listlessly over the rim of a half-filled wineglass.

Herbert stood still for a moment, somewhat miffed by Dan's unceremonious reception but loath to reveal that he had been caught at all off balance. "No," he replied simply.

"Well…" Dan pursed his lips thoughtfully as he stared disconcertingly over Herbert's left shoulder, the specifics of his features obscured by the sharp, deep shadows that fell over his face. "Come in if you want, I guess." Then, to Herbert's surprise, Dan turned around and went back inside, leaving the door open and Herbert on the front step.

"Not exactly the welcome I'd been expecting," Herbert muttered to himself as he stepped into Dan's house, conscientiously closing the door behind him. He followed the sound of Dan's footsteps through the foyer and into the living room, stopping beside the arm of a tasteful blue sofa that was in complete opposition with the quality of the furniture Herbert remember sharing with Dan years ago. The other furniture in the room was sparse—some shelves, an end table and a coffee table, a floor lamp, and what appeared to be a drinks cabinet—while most of his apparent possessions seemed to be books, aside from a television set, a DVD and videocassette player, and an accompanying shelf of movies in both formats. Herbert examined the room with an air of leisurely nosiness while Dan padded heavily over to an open bottle of wine that had been left on the coffee table and topped off his glass.

When Dan finally turned to face him, Herbert was surprised by how old and worn he looked; his cheeks were sunken and hollow, his eyes were dull, his skin was waxy and sallow, and there were streaks of grey in his dark hair. Moreover, beneath his bland and solemnly casual sweater and khaki slacks, he was obviously too thin, and the bones of his wrists stood out in sharp relief. Herbert's eyes flickered momentarily to the glass of wine Dan held. "So if they didn't let you out, what'd you do?" He avoided Herbert's eyes. "Break out?"

"Broadly speaking," Herbert answered primly and then added. "It was a fairly publicized incident. I'm surprised you weren't already aware of it."

Dan waved one hand lackadaisically. "I don't really follow the news anymore."

"Too depressing for you?" Herbert quipped sharply, but Dan didn't rise to the bait. With a barely concealed sigh of contempt, he changed topics. "I did expect that you would have a happy little family here," he sneered.

"Herbert," Dan's voice was nearly a whine as he half-sat, half-fell into an overstuffed armchair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Herbert, what do you want?"

His voice was so plaintive that it startled Herbert into that same slightly sweaty impulse for honesty that had overtaken him on Dan's doorstep. "Revenge," he said simply, and his pride was slightly wounded by the harsh little giggle Dan choked out. He shifted his weight subtly from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable and unsure of himself in a way he'd rarely experienced and had always fought furiously to suppress.

"Really?" Dan grinned. "Revenge?" He took a sip of his wine and grinned disarmingly. "Oh, Herbert," the name snapped from between his teeth like the snag of a rubber band, "Are you going to kill me?"

"Possibly," Herbert said, his voice brittle with the control of a punctured ego. Dan eyed him curiously.

"And are you going to bring me back afterward?" He asked, resting his chin in the palm of one hand. Herbert shrugged noncommittally.

"Possibly," he repeated. Dan raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You don't know yet?"

Herbert frowned. "I didn't say that."

"I suppose," Dan drawled, idly running his fingertip around the lip of his glass and causing it to sing its one, tuneless note, "that you could kill me a hundred times if you really wanted to." He paused to take a sip. "Is that what you were planning?"

"Would it cause you the most pain?" Herbert asked tartly. Dan reacted to the question with a humorless little chuckle, which caused Herbert to bristle further.

Dan caught the look on Herbert's face and returned it. He held Herbert's gaze as he set his glass down on the coffee table and leaned forward slightly, resting his knees on his thighs. "So… what if I were to call the police?" He asked; the implied threat was all too obvious.

"It wouldn't do much good," Herbert frowned at Dan as his eyes flickered between the other man and the telephone sitting on the end table. "They think I'm dead."

"They _what_?" Dan's mouth gaped open incredulously. "You can't be serious… you actually faked your own death to get out of prison?"

"Well, it's not as if I _planned_ things to go that way." Herbert grimaced slightly. "Honestly, Dan, I didn't set out to engineer the whole thing."

Dan let his head drop into his hands. "The police are going to show up here, aren't they?" Herbert rolled his eyes as Dan mumbled rhetorically. "Wherever you go, there's always trouble."

"Oh, please. Spare me your melodrama." Herbert reached into his bag and pulled out a thick sheaf of newspaper pages, collected from a variety of different publications. "Here. Educate yourself." He tossed the small bundle down onto the coffee table, and Dan reached out tentatively, picked up the top paper, and began to read.

"You—you caused a prison riot!" He exclaimed after a moment's skimming.

"Well… not intentionally."

Dan stared up at Herbert, his eyes wide and slightly distant. "A prison riot. You actually managed to cause a prison riot." He ran a hand through his hair and bit his lower lip. "They're going to come after you. They are, and this'll be one of the first places they look. And they'll come here and think I'm helping you and then all this will just start all over again because—"

"Dan, you idiot, you just don't _listen_," Herbert growled as he snatched the newspaper from Dan's hand, flipped through it irritably, tossed it aside when he didn't see what he was looking for, and plucked another paper from the pile to repeat the process. "They think I'm _dead_. What part of this don't you understand?"

"How?" Dan asked, his own voice rising to match Herbert's. "How is that possible?"

"Ah-ha!" Herbert brandished the newspaper excitedly, folding it over to expose an article on one of the inner pages. He stuck it directly under Dan's nose with a triumphant smirk. "Read that."

Warily, Dan took the newspaper from Herbert and read the headline: "_Carnage of Prison Riot Leads Investigators to Believe Missing Prisoners Deceased_." His voice trailed off as he began to read the article. Herbert hovered over him impatiently, waiting for Dan to finish. "Huh. They actually mention you by name." Dan's eyes flickered up to meet Herbert's. "They _really_ think you're dead?"

"Absolutely." Herbert nodded as he allowed himself a small, self-satisfied smile. "And I suppose I have mostly the horrendously inefficient security personnel at Arkham Penitentiary to thank for that. It was disgustingly easy to slip by them with the riot going full tilt."

While Herbert took the opportunity to gloat over the details of his escape, Dan continued to skim through the various newspaper articles, his expression becoming more and more downcast as he learned about the bloody riots that Herbert had been thoroughly embroiled in at the Arkham State Penitentiary. While Herbert's somewhat lurid account began to come to a close, Dan fiddled with the stack of newspaper pages, folding them and sorting them and waiting for Herbert to fall silent. "So…" he said quietly once Herbert had tired of the sound of his own voice. "You were, ah, 'experimenting' again, weren't you?"

"Well… yes, of course. I never stopped." Herbert looked stricken. "But was my work with the reagent actually the cause of the riot? Of course it wasn't." He bristled slightly. "It may have exacerbated the situation, I'll grant you that, but—"

Dan snorted, interrupting Herbert's excuses. "No. It _was_ the cause. You and your morbid…" He slashed his hand through the air in a violent gesture. "You and your morbid _bullshit_. Always causing it." He picked up his wineglass again and took a deep, almost frantic gulp. "I can't even believe you're here, after everything you put me through. What do you actually want, anyway?"

Herbert pursed his lips and glared sullenly at Dan. "Just what I told you: revenge."

"Oh, please. That's even more bullshit than your experiments!" Dan let loose a high-pitched, wild-sounding giggle. "If you'd wanted revenge, you wouldn't have actually _come_ here to tell me so." He shook his head. "You just want to… to gloat, or to see make me feel guilty or something. You just want to wring every ounce of _schadenfreude_ out of me that you possibly can." He raised his eyebrows at Herbert. "Am I right?"

Herbert looked away; his expression was sour and twisted. "Actually, I'm here because I need someplace to stay." Dan stared at him, but said nothing. "Temporarily," Herbert clarified hastily. "Obviously I'm currently in an awkward position when it comes to obtaining things like housing…"

Dan shook his head slowly, dumbfounded. "You've got to be kidding me." Herbert didn't reply. "You actually expect me to let you stay here?"

"Why not? Afraid I'll disturb your family?"

Dan laughed hoarsely. "_Disturb_ my _family_? Are you blind or are you stupid?" He made a sweeping gesture, indicating his nearly empty living room. "I've been divorced for three years and my son spends every other week with me... and most of the time he's in school. Seriously, who would you be disturbing?"

"Then what?" Herbert asked, his impatience growing.

"You came in here and said you wanted to get revenge on me!"

"And you just made it perfectly clear that you don't believe I'm capable of doing any such thing."

"Yeah, but…" Dan sighed. "This is like the wolf trying to get the three little pigs to let him inside. And I don't like it."

Herbert gathered the newspapers on the table and knelt down beside his bag as he began to tuck them away. "Very well, then. But I think you're missing the perfect opportunity for surveillance."

Dan cocked his head to one side. "'Surveillance?'"

"Oh, indeed." Herbert stood stiffly. "Think about it, Daniel. Toss me out now and you'll never know where I am or what I'm planning… until, of course, I come back a second time and take exactly what I want from you." A shiver crept down Dan's spine; Herbert's voice was steady and serious and menacing in a way it had not been before. "Allow me to stay for as long as I need to, and during that time you will know everything you care to know about my movements, my habits, my goals and plans. Anything you find noteworthy or useful, you'll be able to find out." He shrugged. "It is, after all, your house."

Dan hesitated. He still found the idea of allowing Herbert to stay with him to be more than a little repugnant, and yet Herbert's argument made sense: he could either unleash Herbert West back onto the great, wide world, spitting mad and with an enormous chip on his shoulder, or he could become Herbert's surrogate jailer. Both possibilities filled him with uncomfortable feelings of trepidation and fear of all that could possibly go wrong in either situation. He gnawed his lower lip and stared into space as he thought it over. "Look, I… I just don't know…"

"Danny," Herbert's voice was suddenly soft and compelling; Dan looked up at him, surprised at the sudden change. "Keep in mind that, because of you, I spent more than thirteen years in prison. Don't you think that the least you could do is give me a place to stay for the next few days?"

Guilt and shame surged in Dan, colliding with his anger and his nervousness and easily suppressing them. The guilt was almost soothing, it was so familiar. Herbert's voice might have been soft, but his eyes were sharp and unyielding; they plainly said, "_You owe me._" And Dan realized—as a feeling of heavy physical weight seemed to settle over him, causing the muscles of his abdomen to knot with the tension as goosebumps broke out along his arms—that he did owe Herbert, had owed him since the trial.

He let out a sigh as he stood from his chair and turned his back to Herbert. "All right. I guess you can stay."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two – "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." – Victor Hugo

—**666 Darkmore Street****, Arkham, Massachusetts****. September, 1985**—

Herbert West believed in coincidence and synchronicity over fate and destiny, and so he barely flinched when the door jerked open before he had a chance to knock, revealing a blonde girl and—once the sheet had been pulled from over his head—the face of the young man he had met earlier that day on his tour of Miskatonic. Even the revelation that the girl was Meg Halsey, daughter of the dean of the medical school, did not come as a surprise to him.

What surprised him—unnerved him, even—was the surge of hostile feeling and fascination Daniel Cain provoked in him. Clean-cut, mild-mannered, idealistic Dan Cain, who would clearly rather bite his own lip until it bled rather than insult or reject someone to his or her face. He and his dishwater blonde bitch of a girlfriend with her self-important father represented very nearly everything about the human race that Herbert had come to hate over time. Oh, he'd understood what her passive-aggressive little grimaces meant, just as he knew that they were raising eyebrows and exchanging looks behind his back. When Dan had taken his money, he'd been both amused and slightly disgusted; people were so easy to manipulate, their fears and desires so clearly etched across their faces. Dan's unashamed neediness beneath his self-effacing nice-guy exterior, Megan's obvious desire for control, the fact that their relationship was obviously a sexual one and had been for some time… it all irked him in a vague, persistent way that he could not put words to even within the privacy of his own head.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that he would need Dan, someday in the future—while he had rented the room initially for its convenient basement setup and proximity to campus, he had realized quickly that Dan's talent and his favorable connection to Dean Halsey were unexpected bonuses that ought not to be wasted.

Of course, on some level he supposed that he might feel a certain amount of jealousy for the things Dan had: his good looks, his pretty girlfriend, and his slow, comfortable descent into acceptable suburban mediocrity. Still, a part of him scoffed at that theory, knowing as he did that he had no use for the respectable domestic life and career Dan was surely heading toward. He disliked Daniel Cain, he finally decided, on general principle: Dan had everything he himself did not, and he stood for concepts that Herbert found morally reprehensible. Ergo, he disliked Dan. He disliked him, and so found his own strange need to capture and hold the other man's attention even more frustrating than Dan himself.

Even settling this twisted dance of id and ego and rationalizing it to such a degree that he could willingly accept it did not prevent Herbert from standing in the kitchen doorway and staring at the back of the other man's head as he sat at the kitchen table, flipping studiously through a textbook. He hovered there, unsure of himself and all the more frustrated and uncomfortable because of it; he felt inordinately fascinated with the soft, dark hairs on the back of Dan's neck, the folds in his frumpy sweater, the reflection of the overhead light on the crown of his head. But his meditation was soon interrupted as Dan shifted in his seat, the cords in his neck tightening and straining as he turned to look over his shoulder. "Oh… hey there."

"Hello." Herbert took a step forward and saw that Dan had spread his various textbooks and notebooks out in front of him and was currently poring over the material for Dr. Hill's neurobiology lecture. He wrinkled his nose contemptuously. "Hill?"

Dan let out a short, staccato laugh. "Well, yeah. I _am_ in the class." Herbert scowled and looked away. "And so are you, whether you like it or not."

Herbert shrugged as he began to walk slowly around the table toward the sink. "I have seen more than enough to know that the esteemed Dr. Hill is grossly misinformed when it comes to his understanding of the human brain… even of the entire universe itself."

"Uh… huh." Dan's brow furrowed. "Well, you're still going to have to get him to pass you." He watched, slightly bemused, as his new roommate picked through the things on the counter and even paused to peer into the refrigerator. "Look, is there something I can help you with?"

Herbert stopped abruptly and fixed his intense stare on Dan. "Oh, I think there is." His gaze flickered upward momentarily. "Or there will be. Very soon."

"Okay." Dan rested his chin in one hand. "I sort of meant right now, though. Here in the kitchen."

"Oh." Herbert drummed his fingertips on the countertop, clearly irritated that Dan's intent was so much more prosaic than his own. "I see. In that case, no, I don't require your assistance." He paused, spotted a bunch of bananas slowly going brown on the far counter, stepped forward, and ripped one off as if that had been his intention all along.

Dan shrugged, an insouciant half-smile crossing his handsome features. "All right. Hey, you know, if you ever want to study together or anything—?" He gestured invitingly with an open palm toward the empty seat beside him.

"I don't think so," Herbert said stiffly, sneering as he made his way back across the kitchen. Dan shrugged a second time as Herbert stalked past before returning to his notes; that simple gesture of dismissal caused a swelling of impotent rage to rise in Herbert's throat. He pressed his lips together into a straight, tight line, trying hard to ignore the faint smell of Dan's cologne that lingered in his nostrils.

There could be absolutely no doubt about it: he _hated_ Daniel Cain.

—**Braintree****, Massachusetts****. September 2003, the night of Herbert's arrival**—

"I guess I can let you have the attic," Dan said, adopting the defeated monotone of someone who has been forced into doing something he'd rather not. He slouched, shifting his weight nervously from side to side while he waited at the foot of the stairs for Herbert to pick up his bag and follow him. "The basement here isn't really… I mean it's not nearly as big as the ones we had before, back in Arkham."

"No matter." Herbert waved one hand dismissively. "I won't be staying long enough for that to be of any consequence." He turned his sharp, calculating stare toward Dan, who immediately flinched and glanced away briefly. "Isn't that right?"

"Uh, yeah. That's right." Dan shot Herbert a wary look. "That's what you said."

"Exactly." Herbert bowed his head. "So lead on, MacDuff."

"Okay." Dan started up the stairs with Herbert following closely at his heels. About halfway up the second flight Herbert tripped over a patch of insubstantial darkness; he stepped down heavily and immediately recoiled as his foot came down on something that yielded beneath his shoe and hissed at him.

"Oops, watch out," Dan said redundantly as Herbert stumbled and grasped the railing in an effort to remain upright. "Sorry," Dan grinned as soon as Herbert regained his balance, not seeming the least bit apologetic. "That was Nicky's kitten, Church. I broke down and took him to the APL a couple months ago for his birthday." There was a pause. "Nicky is my son," Dan added before turning around and starting up the stairs once again.

Herbert frowned. "Another cat," he muttered as he resumed the climb behind Dan. It was a moment before the detail of the creature's name registered in his mind. "'Church?'" He asked as they came to the attic landing. "An odd name for a pet."

"It's short for 'Winston Churchill,'" Dan explained as he tried the attic door and found it locked. "It's the name of the cat from that one Stephen King book… uh, _Pet Sematary_." He flipped through his keyring to find the one that fit the attic lock, mumbling to himself. "I don't even remember why I put a lock here…"

"'Stephen King?'" Herbert raised his eyebrows. "He writes, ah, 'horror' novels, doesn't he?"

"Broadly speaking," Dan replied as he finally found the key that fit and the door popped open. "Don't tell me you're so out of it that you honestly don't know who Stephen King is?" He pushed the door in and gestured elaborately to the interior. "After you."

Herbert sniffed indignantly and stepped inside, overly conscious of Dan's body behind him. "I'm not 'out of it,' as you say." He took in the cramped, cobwebbed eaves of Dan's attic with a small sigh of resignation. "But I've never had the pleasure of reading anything he has authored." Clasping his hands behind his back, he spun on his heel to face Dan again and gave him a snide quirk of his lips. "I was merely concerned about the welfare of your son."

"Huh?"

Herbert restrained the impulse to roll his eyes. "Most parents would consider an adult horror novel to be… inappropriate for their children."

Dan grinned nastily. "Oh, so you've raised an eleven year old boy, have you?"

Herbert cleared his throat. "No, of course not. But it should be self-evident that—"

"No, no, no." Dan waved one hand, cutting the air as if it had personally offended him. "Trust me, if I tell him he can't read something, he'll automatically go out and do it just to spite me." He leaned against the wall and sighed heavily. "That's kids for you."

"Is it?" Herbert said, mildly. "Well, I suppose you know best." Dan's features twisted slightly, aware of the disbelief inherent in Herbert's seemingly neutral statement, and Herbert turned away, a small smile of satisfaction tugging at the corners of his mouth. "So… this is the space I'm free to use?"

"Uh… yeah." Dan straightened up and took a step away from the wall. "This is the attic." He cleared his throat. "I mean, I know it's a kind of dusty, and we'll probably have to move some of the boxes out if you think you need more room, but…"

"Fine, fine." Herbert waved one hand impatiently. "Does the plumbing extend to the attic or—?"

Dan shook his head. "No, sorry. You'll have to use the bathroom on the second floor."

"Ah." Herbert set his bag down near the wall, out of the general area where it might be stumbled over. "And… the bed?"

"Oh, right." Dan disappeared into a corner for a moment and reappeared dragging a ragged-looking twin-size mattress. "This is all I think I have right now. Sorry." He let the mattress fall to the floor in the middle of the room, sending a cloud of dust up into the air. Herbert stepped back, coughing and blinking furiously as he tried to wave the dust away from his face. "Uh… I'll go get you some sheets, I guess." Dan said quickly. Herbert nodded as he tugged off his glasses and scrubbed his watering eyes. Dan brushed past him as he headed for the attic door, and Herbert turned his head to one side to avoid the dust in the air that followed in his wake. He listened intently as Dan descended the stairs and the creaking of the wood floor subsided.

After sneezing twice in quick succession, Herbert slipped his glasses back on and began to make a preliminary assessment of the space. The room wasn't quite as small as it had first appeared to him, but the boxes upon boxes of Dan's stored possessions had crowded the attic, creating a haphazard and claustrophobic miniature labyrinth. Just as he heard Dan's footsteps pounding up the stairs a second time, it occurred to Herbert that some of his own belongings might have been stored in those boxes from nearly fifteen years ago when he and Dan had shared a house. Providing, of course, that Dan had remained something of a packrat, and had not previously decided to rid himself of every trace of his personal involvement with Herbert West and his macabre experiments.

"Here, I got some sheets… and, uh, also a blanket in case you need it. And some towels." He dropped the small pile beside the lumpy, haphazardly placed mattress, and began to tug on one end of the fitted sheet he'd brought, tossing the other end to Herbert. They made the rest of the bed together in awkward silence. Once they had finished, Dan stood, brushed off his knees reflexively, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. Herbert stayed kneeling on the floor, and looked up at Dan with a forcibly neutral expression.

Dan shifted his weight and sighed. "You _are_ going to leave in the next couple of days, right?"

"I plan to." Herbert shucked off his overcoat and began to slip off his shoes. "Trust me, Daniel, I have no desire to impose upon you any more than I already have."

"Yeah, sure. Somehow, I don't believe that." Dan paused just long enough for Herbert to shoot him an indignant and irritated look. "I'll be keeping an eye on you while you're here," he continued in a low, serious voice. "You know that, right?"

"I would expect absolutely nothing less from you," Herbert replied airily. "And now, goodnight, Dan. Could you please turn off the light on your way out?"

Dan blinked and raked a hand through his hair. "Uh, okay. Good… goodnight, then." With that stilted sentiment having been returned, he left the makeshift bedroom, flipping the switch as he went, and Herbert West laid down in his clothes and fell asleep without hassle for the first time in more than thirteen years.

—**Zurich****, Switzerland****. January 1985**—

It was an exercise in the kind of extravagance he normally hated. And yet, he'd reluctantly admitted to himself that he was more than willing to spend the money simply to put his mind to rest so that he could go back to his more important work without the taint of base, biological imperative encroaching upon his mind like a distant thundercloud. He wanted it over, wanted his innocence of the act to be lost so that he could file the experience away in his memories and eventually forget it, and he had no major reservations about paying for such a thing.

He'd tried to think of it as being analogous to buying a bottle of fine wine and taking an evening to enjoy it; but he quickly found the comparison was destined for failure, since he had no particular interest in the joys and pleasures of savoring either wine or women. So, instead, he had decided to make it as impersonal a transaction as he possibly could, reserving a room for the night at one of the most expensive, lavish, and respectable hotels in the city and ordering his night's companion from the most expensive escort service he had come across.

The streets of Zurich were slick with the drizzle that had continued throughout the course of the day; light from the streetlamps smeared in hazy prisms across West's line of sight and he paused beneath the awning of a corner market to shake off his umbrella, pull a tissue from his coat, and wipe the raindrops from the lenses of his glasses. The weather was unseasonably warm, and he could feel moisture—a mixture of rain and nervous sweat—trickling down the back of his neck. He ran his fingers through his damp hair, pushing it back off his forehead, slipped his glasses back on, and raised his umbrella again as he trotted back into the street. The lake was visible in the near distance directly ahead of him, shrouded in a dense mist, and on his right was the impressively grandiose Baur au Lac hotel.

West quickened his pace to a skipping half-run as he crossed the intersection and approached the hotel's entrance, darting quickly past a uniformed doorman who had hunched his shoulders against the wind and rain to smoke a cigarette. He darted through the heavy doors into the hotel's foyer, breathing a sigh of relief at the dry warmth. As he unbuttoned his topcoat, he let his gaze wander over the few people lingering with their luggage in the lobby and adjacent corridors.

A tall, blonde women stood just outside of the hotel bar. She was cool, calm, and very self-assured, wearing a basic black cocktail dress and a neatly brushed camel hair coat. West watched her surreptitiously as he tied his umbrella closed and stood off to one side in the lounge opposite the check-in desk. The woman tossed back her short, straight hair and reached into her black leather handbag for a compact, then proceeded to make cursory touch-up of her make-up. She didn't look like a whore, but then that certainly wasn't what he was paying for. He moved to the reception area to confirm the room reservation he had made several days earlier.

As the clerk behind the counter was handing him his room key, West felt a light touch on his shoulder; he jumped slightly and turned to find the blonde woman standing just behind him with a small smile on her face. "Mr. Herbert West?" she asked gently. "I am Sonja Pestalozzi. How delightful to meet you." Like many of the residents of Zurich that West had come across in the six months he had lived in the city, she spoke proper and perfect English with a heavy German accent. He was glad for that; while he had a more than adequate grasp of the standard German language used in writings and media produced and distributed in Zurich, he had had difficulty grasping the odd dialect of the language that the Swiss actually spoke.

"Likewise," West responded stiffly, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it awkwardly. There was a momentary pause as they moved away from the reception area.

"Did you want to get a drink before retiring for the night?" She made the suggestion with an overly theatrical flourish, and it was then that West realized the woman could not have been much older than himself; she had seemed far more sophisticated when she had been standing alone and thought herself unobserved.

"No, thank you."

She laughed gaily and looped her arm in his in a motion that caught West completely off-guard. "Ah, yes, so focused! Well, let us not waste any time, then…" She led the way to the elevator, and West was obliged to follow by the firm grip she kept on his elbow. "And so," she said conversationally as she pressed the call button, "for how long are you staying in the city?"

"I'm currently residing in Zurich, actually." He cleared his throat, avoiding the curious quirk of her eyebrows. "In conjunction with the university."

"Oh, the _Universität_!" The woman trilled as the elevator doors slid open and she pulled him inside. "How wonderful. My brother is currently attending the _Universität_ as well, in some branch of the arts." She waved one hand dismissively as West stabbed at the button for the fifth floor, feeling more than a little trapped as the doors shut with a soft 'thunk!' and he began to feel that perhaps he had made quite a mistake. "But I don't suppose that is your area of study, is it?"

"Ah, no. No, actually, my research is in the field of chemistry." He shifted his weight awkwardly, thoroughly put off by her attempts at conversation.

She seemed to sense his discomfort, and her expression changed from one of forced cheerfulness to a slight flush of embarrassment. "I must apologize. We normally accompany our clients to social functions before… ah." She tilted her head to one side as she squeezed his arm in a manner that was probably meant to be reassuring. "I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?"

"No!" West leaned back as she leaned forward. "I mean… no. No, of course not." She smiled at him and lowered her eyelids suggestively; at the same time he felt fingertips tickling and stroking the nape of his neck. The tickling feeling caused his hackles to rise; the sensation was not entirely pleasant, but just as West was about to put a stop to her attentions the bell for the fifth floor rang. As they left the elevator, she moved her hand back to his arm, allowing him to lead her down the hallway to the room he had reserved.

The key fit easily into the hole of the lock, foreshadowing—West thought to himself with a wry little grin—the act soon to come. The interior of the room was low-lit, decorated in deep mahogany wood furniture with green upholstery. He held the door open for the woman—_Sonja_, he reminded himself, _wasn't her name Sonja?_—and she sashayed through with a coquettish wink and flip of her hips. After swallowing the lump of distaste in his throat, West followed her inside, dropping his umbrella by the door as he eased it shut.

She was just slipping off her coat and tossing it onto a nearby chair as he entered the spacious main room of the junior suite. The straps of her dress were extremely thin, leaving her smooth shoulders and back nearly bare. She shook her head and the ends of her hair tickled her collarbone delicately. "Well?" She cocked one perfect, tweezed eyebrow at him, sultry and teasing. "Don't start being afraid of me now."

West frowned and rolled his shoulders back as he stepped closer. "Afraid? Of you?" Her laughter came back at him like a wave, harsh and full and all-encompassing.

"No, no," she giggled as she leaned back against the low chest of drawers. "Ah, I have to tell you," she paused and sighed heavily and happily, forcing her breasts up and down in a slow, tantalizing arc, "that this quite a refreshing evening for me."

"Is it?"

"Oh, you have no idea how awful it can be, having to go with these boring men to their business dinner parties." She blew a sharp, harsh breath upward to blow back a stray lock of hair. "I'm not very good at pretending to be interested in their conversations," she confided with a little smirk. West cleared his throat and glanced away. "It is far nicer to spend an evening with a cute young man like yourself." She watched with a pleased expression as West flushed slightly and murmured an incoherent reply. "Of course, I would be so much happier if you would come a bit closer and make yourself comfortable."

He nodded hastily as he shrugged off his topcoat, folded it in half, and set it atop the television while the girl watched him languidly, her head cocked, lips pursed, and eyelids drooping. It was an expression that managed to be both highly sexual and yet somehow extremely unappealing to him. West unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat tentatively on the edge of the large bed; when he looked up at the girl she gave him a coy smile, and he felt peculiarly as if he was being put on the spot. His chest and throat became very tight as she approached and slid off one strap of her dress, revealing a single pale breast to him. She leaned over him almost casually, placing one stocking-foot up on the bed beside him, as she guided his hands up onto her hips. Her bared breast swayed gently as she bent over further and tilted her head to one side, inviting a kiss.

West was confused and alarmed to realize that, even this far into the act that had so preoccupied him for more than a year, he still did not feel particularly pleased or aroused. In fact, he realized as she touched her lips to his, he had never gone so far as to imagine what was so necessary or titillating about the actual contact. He tightened his grip on her hips to try to control the sudden shaking that had overtaken his hands.

The kiss had quickly become unpleasantly wet and slimy, but though West wanted to pull away and catch his breath, the girl was becoming increasingly aggressive, trying to push him backward to lie on the bed. She had moved to straddle his hips, pushing her breasts against his chest, and all of a sudden West's felt as if he was choking on the scent of her perfume and his lungs had begun to burn from a lack of oxygen. A need more pressing than any vague sexual desire he'd ever felt overtook him and he simultaneously bit down on her lower lip and pushed her off of his lap and onto the floor.

She gave a breathless little cry as she landed solidly on her tailbone, drew a deep breath, and yelled, "_Was machst Du da für Scheiße?_" Blood trickled down her chin.

"I'm sorry." He stood, daintily sidestepping her splayed legs. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can—"

"_Schwuchtle_," she insulted him as she dabbed at her lips with her fingertips. He didn't understand the word, and the subtle shift in her pronunciation indicated that she had switched to one of the Swiss dialects. "Why did you do that?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated, fumbling with his overcoat, digging for the fold of bills he had tucked away. "Here." He threw her the money. "I can't stay." She stared at him blankly as he pulled his coat on with sharp, jerking motions. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck through the tiny forest of tiny raised hairs. He felt threatened. "Keep the room, keep the money—"

"_Fegg__ di_," she said matter-of-factly, wiping more blood from her bottom lip.

West barely managed to remember to grab his umbrella as he backed out of the room, leaving the girl splayed on the floor with an accusing glint in her eyes. "I'm sorry," he repeated without inflection as he left the room.

He hurried from the hotel as fast as he could without raising comment, and felt the tight panic lift from his chest as he stepped back out into the rainy streets. Instead of going to the apartment he was renting, he automatically headed for the laboratory buildings of the University of Zurich where he spent the majority of his time. He knew that he would have no issues getting into the building, as he'd had a set of keys made for himself as soon as he'd realized how much time he would be spending using the facilities there. He also knew that it would be virtually deserted, more private even than his apartment building, and at the moment he didn't think he could quite stomach even the possibility of other people.

That laboratory itself was cool and sterile, the antithesis of the damp organic feel of the outside air or the pneumatic warmth of a human body. He breathed in the unique smell as he unlocked the door to Dr. Gruber's lab and felt the illusion of calm and control returning within the comfortable sphere of the familiar environment.

He shut the door and leaned back against it, closing his eyes and breathing slowly and steadily as he allowed any idea of ever fulfilling the cultural obligations of sex to leave his mind. The lab was where he belonged, his work was what was really important, and any attempt to conform to the rest of the world was a greater distraction than it was worth.

West relaxed his fingers, allowing his umbrella to fall to the floor. He stepped forward, pulling off his coat, ready to resume the project he had left that afternoon and fully assured in what was really important in his life.

—**Braintree****, Massachusetts****. September 2003, the next evening**—

It was nearly eight o'clock at night when Herbert finally stomped down the stairs to the ground floor of Dan's house, feeling logy and thoroughly displaced. He had slept nearly the entire day and night, waking only occasionally to get a drink of water and use the bathroom at regular intervals. And, as groggy as he felt, he also realized that the tension he had been carrying during the days since his escape from Arkham Penitentiary had completely disappeared. He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed as he stood in Dan's living room, unsure of quite what he should do next.

After a moment, he realized that he could hear water running and movement to his left; he frowned and peered around one of Dan's bookcases into the fluorescent light of the kitchen. Dan was standing in front of the sink, leisurely washing dishes with his back to Herbert.

Herbert leaned forward and watched Dan; the scene was both familiar and curiously alien to him. Of course, he and Dan had shared space for many years prior to his incarceration, and yet the current situation was unlike any of those they had previously weathered together. A crucial split had occurred, and they were no longer allies. _Had we ever really been… allies? Friends?_ Herbert mused to himself as he watched Dan fill the drying rack. _No. Not really._ "Do you need help with anything?"

Dan jumped at the sound of Herbert's voice, and then turned and smiled. "Nah, I got it," he nodded to the refrigerator, "But there's some leftover Chinese in the fridge if you're hungry. Silverware is in the third drawer on the right." Herbert opened the refrigerator door and pulled out half a carton of cold fried rice and a carton of chow mein that was almost full. He pulled out a fork, sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat greedily. Dan shot him a look of cautious amusement that Herbert ignored. "Food in prison is that bad, huh?"

"You have no idea," Herbert murmured grumpily through a mouth full of noodles.

Dan pursed his lips and nodded. "No… I guess I don't."

They both lapsed into silence. Herbert had very nearly finished the carton of chow mein and was finally beginning to slow down before Dan turned off the water, shook off his hands, and tried again. "So… where are you going to go from here?"

Herbert lifted one shoulder in a lackadaisical shrug. "Out of the country," he said vaguely.

"Do you have the money to do that?"

"Not at the moment." Herbert gave Dan an appraising look. "But I have plans."

"Yeah, I bet you do." Dan leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms; he looked faintly entertained by Herbert's evasiveness. "I think I'd prefer it if you chose not to lay out the details for me, though."

"Not a problem," Herbert replied airily. "I wasn't planning to anyway." He waited for a response, but all Dan did was continue to stand in front of him and watch him eat. Herbert shifted slightly uneasily in his chair. "So. Your family…?"

Dan quickly jumped on the change of topic. "My ex-wife and her new husband live closer to Boston."

"With your son?"

"We have joint custody," Dan corrected. "Nicky goes to school closer to his mom, though." He sighed deeply, and Herbert saw a flash of the Daniel Cain he had first met in the face of the much older stranger standing before him. "It's not… not really the greatest arrangement."

"For you or for him?" Herbert asked archly.

Dan shook his head sadly. "For all of us."

"Well then." Herbert stabbed his fork into the rest of the fried rice, beginning to feel more than a little uncomfortable with Dan's obvious woes even as his curiosity was piqued. "Why did you separate in the first place?" Dan shot him an inquiring look, which Herbert waved away with an irritable hand gesture. "Daniel, please. You know exactly what I've done for the past thirteen years. But I know absolutely nothing about your life."

"I had no idea you were interested." Herbert's expression became pained, and Dan allowed himself a brief—but clearly pleased—smile. "Okay, okay… I guess it's a fair enough question." He raised one hand to his mouth and began to gnaw on his thumbnail. "Well, first you'd have to know that that was actually my second marriage." Herbert raised an eyebrow and Dan shrugged almost sheepishly. "Francesca and I were married."

"For how long?"

"Less than a year. We kind of rushed things after… you know."

"Hmm." Herbert frowned as memories of Francesca's intrusive presence began to surface. "And it didn't work out? What a surprise."

"We were just too different," Dan said, choosing to ignore Herbert's acerbic comment. "I mean, I guess we should have seen that it wouldn't work, but after everything that happened…" He tossed his head and let out a little laugh. "I think she's in Africa with the Peace Corps now. She still emails me sometimes."

"_Anyway_…" Herbert prompted as he stabbed meaningfully at the last half inch of chow mein; he was eager to move away from the still-irritating subject of Francesca.

"Anyway." Dan agreed. "Uh, a few months after Frannie and I separated, I met Cindy. And we got married. And Nicky came along in May of '92." He shrugged again. "And we tried for a really long time to make it work. It's just that some things… don't. You know?"

"Actually, I don't." Herbert said bitterly. "Humor me, Daniel, since you know fully well that I never had the opportunity to engage in such a relationship myself. What, exactly, didn't work?"

Dan let out a long, resigned sigh. "God, I don't know. Just… _everything_ didn't work, after awhile. Or maybe I was just too greedy."

"How so?"

"I really wanted to… to have someone to share my life with—you know, to love, I guess—and to have this domestic life." Dan hugged his thin chest defensively, the folds of the arms of his baggy sweater spilling down over his forearms from where he'd pushed up the cuffs. "But then I also wanted to be able to do something really meaningful and worthwhile."

"Yes," Herbert said without much enthusiasm. "That does sound very much like you."

Dan chuckled weakly. "Yeah, probably." The words hung in the air, the sentiment settling uncomfortably between them.

After several moments of thoughtful silence, Herbert cleared his throat. "We could have done something meaningful," he said quietly, his voice indistinctly affected in a way that he himself didn't entirely understand.

"Yeah, I know," Dan replied softly, shrugging his shoulders and angling his head so he could stare out the kitchen window. "Maybe we could have. Maybe I made a big mistake."

"Maybe you did," Herbert answered. Dan just shrugged again.

"Well, I'm not perfect. And I was getting scared." Dan glanced over at Herbert appraisingly. "You wouldn't understand that, would you?" It was Herbert's turn to shrug, though he did so with more discomfort than Dan.

"I suppose it was occasionally more grisly work than the average constitution would be able to bear…"

"No, no, no," Dan shook his head, a little smile playing over his hurt-puppy features. He reached out and playfully nudged Herbert's feet with the tip of one loafer, laughing as Herbert quickly pulled his feet back beneath his chair to avoid the prodding. "See? I knew you wouldn't get it."

Herbert frowned. "Wouldn't get what?" He asked, irritation creeping into his voice; he detested both being teased and being wrong, and the good-natured, slightly sad expression on Dan's face was beginning to unsettle him. It seemed almost as if Dan had forgotten what they had gone through all those years ago, as if Dan's new life had afforded him some sort of very specific emotional amnesia that Herbert had been denied. He had returned to Dan, he thought unkindly, as a fool returns to his folly and a dog to his vomit, and he had expected a certain amount of vilification and anger to match his own. But instead, he had been handed Dan the forgiving, Dan the lonely Good Samaritan who had no qualms about discussing the previous emotional upheavals of the life he had led _sans_ Herbert. It was an extremely unsatisfying trade, somehow.

"That I was scared of… getting older, I think, and missing out on the family thing." Dan stared down at the floor, suddenly very quiet and contemplative. "Losing Meg was really hard for me. I honestly thought we would always be together, you know?"

There was a pause. "No. I don't understand."

"Well… somehow I'm guessing that's because you never even thought about having a family." Dan's voice became clipped, his expression twisted into one of abrupt petulance. "You never had someone who meant the world to you, someone you were absolutely sure would never leave you." He bit his lower lip. "You never had that person and then lost them." He rubbed one hand over his forehead, and then swiped at one eye and then the other in a quick, angry motion.

"I wonder…" Herbert murmured after a moment, his eyes glassy as he stared off into space. Dan lifted his head and looked over, slightly curious. "I wonder what Meg looks like today?" Dan's eyes widened, but he didn't respond. "So many of the subjects that we tested the reagent on showed little or no decay, even over extended periods of time. It makes me wonder…" Herbert flashed Dan an unpleasant smile. "Is she still lying there, hands on her chest, looking just as pretty as she did when she died?"

Dan covered his eyes with one hand. "Please… don't."

"Or maybe the reagent finally has finally exhausted itself. Do you think?" Herbert cocked his head to one side, fully aware of how upset his words were making Dan. "Perhaps her pretty little breasts have fallen down into her ribcage, hmm, the same way the cotton they stuffed under her eyelids has rotted back into her eyesockets? Or maybe the purge from her stomach has forced her mouth open and trickled down her chin and her neck, all the way down to her hair…"

"Oh god." Dan moved his hand to his mouth; his skin had become pale and his eyes had gone glassy. For a moment, Herbert truly hoped that he would just lean over the sink and throw up. But Dan simply stood there, looking thin and ill and very far away.

"I find it somewhat amazing," Herbert continued quietly after a moment's pause, "That you would honestly prefer to dwell on _that_ rather than moving on with your life and your work."

"Oh, the work!" Dan burst out suddenly. "I knew it, that's all you care about, that's all you even comprehend!" Herbert sat stoically, absorbing Dan's anger and feeling a secret, guilty thrill that made his palms itch and his heart beat faster. "You don't know anything—_anything!_—about other people!" Out of the corner of his eye, Herbert caught a burst of movement, and he realized after a brief moment of confusion that Dan's raised voice had caused the infernal cat, Church, to make its escape from the vicinity. "I don't even get why you wanted to bring back the dead so much. You always wanted everyone to do exactly what you told them to, and who does that better than a corpse?"

"You misunderstand me."

"No. No, I understand you perfectly." Dan shook his head as he pushed himself away from the counter. "I couldn't see it when we were living together, but I sure as hell can see it now." He strode toward the door, but reconsidered halfway there and turned back to Herbert. "Once you leave here, you'll be alone for the rest of your life. You'll die alone—" Herbert raised an eyebrow. "—eventually," Dan conceded. "And no one will care. And you'll be miserable the whole time, even though you might never admit it." He held Herbert's gaze for a moment before he looked away. His shoulders slumped again and he ran one hand through his hair as he shuffled out of the kitchen, looking defeated by what he had just said. And then in one swift movement he was out of sight, apparently unable to stand being in the same room as the person he despised any longer.

Herbert sat very still at the table, listening as Dan stomped around the living room, switched on the television, and turned up the volume. Stealthily, Church slunk back into the kitchen and began to rub against Herbert's leg, fishing for reassurance. Herbert kicked him away irritably. He didn't want to admit it, but Dan's accusations had touched upon a number of his current insecurities.

Belatedly, he wished he had been able to take the revenge he had planned rather than losing his nerve on the doorstep.


End file.
